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xf86-video-v4l Driver Ported To V4L2

Phoronix: xf86-video-v4l Driver Ported To V4L2

One of the seldom mentioned X.Org DDX drivers is xf86-video-v4l. This driver is not for some obscure or vintage hardware like many other drivers in the X.Org tree (e.g. -savage, -s3virge, -tseng, -trident) but it targets no specific graphics card and instead provides an X-Video extension port for video overlay. Just load the module and it works with any hardware supported by a Video 4 Linux (V4L) driver. While this driver isn't often worked on (the most recent commits in Git are from July), it's in the process of being revised...

V4L is not just for cameras. It's what allows you to see TV when you have a TV card (analog, digital or satelite). Those cards have a framebuffer. So I guess xf86-video-v4l allows you to run X11 on your TV card?

V4L is not just for cameras. It's what allows you to see TV when you have a TV card (analog, digital or satelite). Those cards have a framebuffer. So I guess xf86-video-v4l allows you to run X11 on your TV card?

That doesn't make any sense. A TV tuner is an input device, not an output device.

What the driver basically does is to check the Xv extension of the screen, using
xf86XVQueryOffscreenImages(), selecting a FOURCC mode that it is compatible with
a video capture board. Then, it passes a memory address at the video board where
the overlay should be placed to the kernel driver. The kernel driver will then
program the device's DMA to do data transfer from the capture board into the
video board.